Accessibility Audit
Do you really need to make your site accessible?
- Approximately 19% of Australians have a disability. (ABS 1999) and are divided approximately as follows:
| Disability | Percentage of total disabled |
|---|---|
| Physical impairment | 70% |
| Hearing impairment or degrees of deafness | 14% |
| Intellectual or other mental impairment | 9% |
| Vision impairment | 4% |
| Psychiatric impairment | 2% |
Source: Bourk (link to external site) from HREOC 1999
- It is further estimated that around 10% of Australians have a disability that specifically affects their use of information and communication technologies.
- If your site is not accessible your business or organisation may be exposed to potential financial risk. For instance, SOCOG was ordered to pay $20000 damages under Australia's Disability Discrimination Act for site inaccessibility. Visit the HREOC site to read more about this case Maguire v SOCOG.
To accommodate disabled users and minimise risk your website should be designed and optimised for use by people with disabilities and should at least meet Priority 1 W3C checkpoints (developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
To read more about accessibility and W3C go to our Resources - Accessibility section.
Our services - Accessibility Audit
Peak Usability uses electronic assessment tools as well as manual evaluation techniques to determine the extent to which your website supports a wide variety of possible users (including those with disabilities).
It is our view that electronic assessment tools alone are not accurate in truly determining the extent to which your site is accessible.
Our accessibility audit includes checks against the current standards for accessibility from the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
An accessibility audit is often performed in conjunction with usability reviews and/or usability testing.
If funds are available, we also encourage clients to consider accessibility testing. Peak Usability have a network of accessibility professionals that are able to provide these services.
What do we deliver at the end of an Accessibility Audit?
We provide you with an accessibility evaluation report which highlights Priority 1, Priority 2 and Priority 3 violations. Utilising our expertise and knowledge of human factors and accessibility, we provide recommendations and practical solutions to your website's accessibility.